Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment:
Ver. 21. Ye have heard that it was said by them of old] Antiquity is venerable: and of witnesses, Aristotle witnesseth, that the more ancient they are, the more to be credited, as less corrupt. New things are vain things, saith the Greek proverb. And the historian condemneth his countrymen, as despisers of old customs, and carried after new. a But as old age is a crown, if it be found in the way of righteousness, Proverbs 16:31, and not otherwise; so may it be said of these Kadmonim or the old Rabbis, later than Ezra, whom our Saviour here confuteth. Much might have been attributed to their authority, had they not rested upon the bare letter of the law, and wrested it sometimes to another meaning. Antiquity disjoined from verity is but filthy hoariness; and deserveth no more reverence than an old lecher, which is so much the more odious, because old. And as manna, the longer it was kept against the command of God the more it stank; so do errors and enormities. Laban pretendeth antiquity for his God, in his oath to Jacob: The God of Abraham, saith he, and the God of Nahor, the God of their father, judge between us, Genesis 31:53. But Jacob swore by the fear of his father Isaac. He riseth not higher than his father, and yet doubts not but he worshipped God aright. εμοι αρχαια Ιησου ο Χριστος. (Ignat.) It is no good rule to say, We'll be of the same religion with our forefathers, unless we can approve it right by the Holy Scriptures. Plus valet malum inolitum quam bonum insolitum: and that, Tyrannus, trium literatum mos, too often carries it against truth. The image that fell down from Jupiter (for which there was so much ado at Ephesus, του Διοπετους, Act 19:35) is said by the town clerk to be such as could not be spoken against with any reason. And why? because it was wonderfully ancient (as Pliny telleth us). For whereas the temple of Diana had been seven different times rebuilt, this image was never changed; b and thence grew the so great superstition, by the covetousness of the priests. As likewise the Ancilia among the Romans; and Pessinuntium among the Asians. But what saith a noble writer, Antiquity must have no more authority than what it can maintain. Did not our predecessors hold the torrid zone uninhabitable? did they not confine the world in the ark of Europe, Asia, and Africa, till Noah's dove, Columbus, discovered land? &c.
Thou shalt not kill: and whosoever killeth shall be in danger of judgment] That is, it shall be questioned whether it be fit he be put to death or not. Thus as Eve dallied with the command, saying, Ye shall not eat thereof, lest ye die (when God had said, Ye shall surely die whensoever ye eat), and so fell into the devil's danger; in like sort, these Jewish doctors had corrupted the very letter of the law, and made doubtful and questionable what God had plainly and peremptorily pronounced to be present death. Before the Flood, indeed, some do guess and gather out of Gen 9:5-6 that the punishment of murder, and such like heinous offences, was only excommunication from the holy assemblies, and exclusion out of their fathers' families, as Cain was cast out from the presence of the Lord; that is, from his father's house, where God was sincerely served. Sure it is, that no sooner was the world repaired, than this law was established, "Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed;" and this reason is rendered, "for in the image of God made he him," Genesis 9:6. That image (it is true) is by the Fall defaced and abolished; yet are there some relics thereof still abiding, which God will not have destroyed. If any object, Why then should the murderer be destroyed, since he also is made in the image of God? the answer is easy, because the murderer hath destroyed the image of God in his neighbour, and turned himself into the image of the devil. Besides, God hath indispensably and peremptorily commanded it: He that sheddeth the blood of any person, hasteneth to the grave, let no man hinder him, Proverbs 28:17. Say he escape the stroke of human justice, yet the barbarians could say (as of Paul, whom they took for a murderer) that divine vengeance will not suffer him to live, Acts 28:4; "Bloody and deceitful men shall not live out half their days," Psalms 55:23. Usually either God executeth them with his own immediate hand, as it might be easy to instance in many bloody persecutors and others; or he maketh them their own deathsmen, as Pilate; or setteth some others to work to do it for them. As (among other examples of God's dealings in this kind) A. D. 1586, Walsh, Bishop of Ossory, in Ireland, a man of honest life, with his two servants, were stabbed to death by one Dulland, an Irish old soldier, while he gravely admonished him of his foul adulteries; and the wicked murderer escaped away, who had now committed 45 murders with his own hand. At length revenge pursuing him, he was by another bloody fellow, Donald Spaman, shortly after slain himself, and his head presented to the Lord Deputy. Neither can I here omit (that which I had almost forgotten) the just hand of God upon that villanous parricide, Alphonsus Diazius, the Spaniard, who (after he had, like another Cain, 1 John 3:12, killed his own natural brother, John Diazius, merely because he had renounced Popery and became a professor of the reformed religion, and was not only not punished, but highly commended of the Romanists for his heroic achievements) desperately hanged himself at Trent, upon the neck of his own mule, being haunted and hunted by the furies of his own conscience. Senarclaeus de morte Ioan. Diazii, A.D. 1551. Seipsum desperabundus Tridenti de collo mulae suae suspendit.
a πιστοτατειοιπαλαιοι αδιαφθοροι γαρ. Rhet. lib. i. τα καινα κενα. Thucydides. Athenienses suos υπεροπτας των ειωθοτων, non sine probro appellitat. Cor Princorum fuit sicut porta porticus templi, at cor posterorum sicut forameniacus. Talmud Erublin. Papists boast much of antiquity, as once the Gibeonites did of old shoes and mouldy bread.
b Virgineum fuit simulachrum longe antiquissimum, nunquam mutatum, septies restituto templo.